Don B. says:

>Currently the annual allocation goes 50% Indian (via treaty rights,
>who will still be gillnetting even if 640 passes) and the rest split
>between non-Indian commercial and sports fishers.
>
>Remove the commercial fishermen, and it becomes 50% Indian and 50%
>sportsfishermen. It's been nearly 20 years since I earned my BS in
>Mathematics, but I believe 50% and 50% still add up to 100%. Correct
>me if I'm wrong.
>
>In other words, harvest levels won't drop.

Not quite so simple, I don't think. Your addition assumes that sport
fishers will automatically fill the void left by the commercial
fishers. It doesn't usually work that way. Returning salmon are not
always the most willing of biters, which can make them tough for
anglers to harvest, but doesn't keep them out of gillnets.

Besides, the initiative applies to more than salmon. The bottom
fishery (cod, pollack) in south Puget Sound has crashed in recent
years, thanks in large part to commercial overfishing. I'd vote to
reduce commercial fishing even if birds were not involved. Just as
the DNR has long treated the timber companies as their sole
constituents, so has Fisheries coddled the netters. Or so it seems to
this admittedly biased recreational fisherman.

I do worry about bird bycatch by anglers. Rhinoceros Auklets, in
particular, seem susceptible to baited hooks. I'll no longer use bait
in areas with concentrations of auklets. Maybe no-bait regulations
are needed at certain times, like those on some trout waters.

640 oui, 48 non.

Eric Kraig
Olympia
kraig at wln.com